Invaders in the legends of the southern and Shimozerian Vepsians

The article analyzes the information about foreign invaders in the legends of the southern and Shimozerian Vepsians. The research relevance is associated with the analysis of transformation of ideas about invaders in the Vepsian traditional culture, and determining the degree of preservation of the legends about them in the memory of modern informants. The research was conducted to investigate the Vepsians' perceptions of so-called “Polish pans”, who were considered to be the first settlers of this land and the same time were presented as invaders. The analysis of previous studies and the materials obtained from modern informants was used to compare these perceptions and interpret the results. The main aim of the research was to analyze persistent motifs in the legends about invaders, commonly referred to as “Polish pans” and “Litva” (the Lithuanians), collected from modern informants. To this end, the results of the XX century investigations were compared with the results of the field expeditions to the Boksitogorsk and Vytegra districts undertaken between 2017 and 2019. The article also deals with the Vepsian tradition of worshiping sacred objects and places (such as ancient burials), connected in the legends with the invaders' activities, and evaluates the preservation of the historical memory of such objects in the testimonies of modern informants. The research resulted in the identification of the remaining narrative motifs about invaders among the modern population of the Vepsian area, as well as in the localization of sacred objects still associated with the invaders. The author also discovered individual cases of keeping traditions connected with visiting and worshiping such sacred objects.